That 5,000 year old beer recipe from China blew my mind

I was reading about the Mijiaya site in Shaanxi and found out they were brewing beer back in 3400 BC with millet and barley. Did anyone else not realize beer making was that old outside of Mesopotamia?

2 comments

2 Comments

ryantorres11d ago

I see where you're coming from, but I think the Mijiaya find gets overstated a bit. They found residues with millet and barley, but calling it "beer" is a stretch since we don't know how it was fermented or what it tasted like. Ancient brewing in Mesopotamia actually has clearer evidence, like the Sumerian beer recipe on cuneiform tablets from around 1800 BC that mentions specific ingredients and brewing steps. The Chinese site is impressive for its age, but it's more of a proto-beer situation compared to the well documented stuff from the Middle East.

drew_reed6211d ago

50,000 years ago is a long time to guess about recipes, but the Mijiaya people clearly had a fermented grain drink going on, which is beer in my book. I get your point about the Sumerian tablets being more detailed, @ryantorres, but finding chemical proof of barley and millet fermentation at 5000 BC is still a solid case for ancient Chinese brewing. The Sumerians just left better notes, not necessarily a better beer.